Annual Goals
Friends of Banner Mountain (FBM) is proud to be an all-volunteer supported community service organization. It is an opportunity for like-minded residents to join together to
protect and preserve our beautiful mountain. This year we are focused on continuing to ensure we all have access to the latest fire safety information and to support strategies
that will ensure our safe evacuation off the mountain if needed. Please give some
thought to taking a more active role in your neighborhood by serving as a Neighborhood
Contact. Your energy and experience is just what we need to be successful!
FBM 2025 Goals:
1. Increase Resident’s Understanding and Implementation of Home Hardening.
Encourage residents to assess their Home Hardening status to prevent ember incursion. Promote basic home hardening steps: Class A roof, 1/8″ metal screen mesh over vents, metal flashing where the deck meets the house, keep the crawlspace under the deck clear, and keep the first 5 feet from home clear of all combustible vegetation and material.
2. Increase Resident’s Understanding and Implementation of Defensible Space.
Encourage residents to assess their Defensible Space zones to prevent home ignition. Educate residents on defensible space zones and provide access to FREE Green Waste events.
3. Prepare Residents to “Leave Early” and to identify their evacuation route.
Promote “Ready Nevada County, ” the gensys monitoring system, “Code Red”, “Watch Duty” and “Know Your 5.” Run a promotion emphasizing “YOU are irreplaceable” emphasizing an available Go Bag, Preparedness, and the Importance of Leaving Early.
4. Increase the number of Neighborhood Contacts.
Our Contacts are simply “Good Neighbors”. They share and collect information and are invited to attend our quarterly planning/information update meetings. The more Contacts we have, the easier it will be to mobilize and realize shared goals. This year, multiple Community Meetings are being held to educate our residents and encourage neighbors to sign up as Neighborhood Contacts.
5. Increase the number of FBM members and fill vacant FBM Board positions.
Did you know that while FBM boasts 1500 residents we only have approximately 350 members? We are confident that there are many more residents who would be interested in joining our shared cause if they knew it was available. You can help with this goal by talking about FBM with your friends and neighbors. This year, your FBM Board is considering promotional opportunities to “spread the word.” Your FBM Board consists of nine (9) volunteer positions. We are currently seeking to fill two (2) positions: Vice President of Membership and one Adhoc/training position. Please consider joining this small group of dedicated volunteers so we can continue the FBM mission into the future! Provide continuing education opportunities through the FBM website and e-subscriber service.
6. Provide continuing education opportunities through the FBM website and e-subscriber service.
FBM serves as a conduit to provide access to information available from the Nevada County Office of Emergency Services, Nevada County Sheriff’s Office, Fire Safe Council, CALFIRE, and the Nevada County Consolidated Fire District. For example: Code Red, ZoneHaven, Ready Nevada County and Scout Your Route. Encourage residents’ access to these tools to increase wildfire resilience on our mountain. Encourage residents to consider alternative communication options during power outages.
7. Encourage residents to consider alternative communication options during power outages.
Lengthy power outages can result in no dial tone and/or internet. And, trying to make multiple calls to neighbors during an emergency is very time consuming! Neighbors are beginning to embrace short distance walkie talkies and longer distance Amateur Radio Emergency Services® (ARES) as part of their emergency back-up strategy. Continue to encourage residents to maintain batteries and a handheld radio, or use their car radio, to monitor emergency updates from local AM radio stations.